For the first time in NHL history, a head coach will be the biggest free agent on the market when Mike Babcock’s contract expires on July 1. That is of course if it expires.
When the Red Wings were eliminated last week, already rampant speculation on Babcock’s next team reached a new peak. Fans and the media alike were asking if that 2-0 loss to Tampa Bay was his last game behind the bench in Detroit. When someone actually did ask Babcock, all he said was “I think we’ll have a team meeting and final press conference. I’ll be happy to talk about any of that crap then.”
There are lots of teams looking for coaches right now but after this season, but GM Ken Holland understands that he needs Babcock to stay.
“I want Mike to stay,” Holland said at the end of the season press conference on May 1. “Money isn’t going to be an object.”
The Red Wings are in the middle of a rebuild right now, with players like Pavel Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg and Niklas Kronwall all past their primes. In the 2013-14 season, the Red Wings went on an improbable run at the end of the season to score the final wild card spot. They then quickly lost in five games to the Boston Bruins in round 1. That season the Red Wings finished 39-28-15 for 93 points, the worst season in Babcock’s 10 years in Detroit.
Gustav Nyquist, who had 28 goals and Tomas Tatar, who had 19, led that run into the playoffs, ushering in a new era of offence for the team. But neither of those guys had earned spots in the starting lineup at the start of that season. Nyquist even played 15 games in the AHL before injuries forced him to come back to Detroit and lead them in scoring. So when Detroit was eliminated by Boston, Babcock could have been fired for his mistake in keeping older players on the roster when the young ones clearly were ready to go. And with a bunch of fresh rookies on the team, it almost made sense to take the time to replace a coach who had been with the team for 10 years, before the new players had bought into his systems.
But Babcock stayed and this season, the Red Wings had a bounce back year. They finished 43-25-14 for 100 points and third place in the Atlantic Division. The main reason that happened was Babcock sticking with the young players from the beginning. Players like Dan Cleary, Stephen Weise and Jakub Kindl were scratched for Riley Sheahan, Tomas Jurco and Danny Dekeyser. And 23-year-old goalie Petr Mrazek was all but officially given the starting position by the time the playoffs came around.
The Red Wings need the new, young players to learn to play the Babcock way if they are going to be successful in the future. That means playing disciplined hockey and playing in a coordinated unit of five players, not three, as the puck moves up and down the ice. The young players are already buying into these systems, but with more on the way the team needs Babcock to stay to reinforce them.
All of the young guys making an impact in Detroit were part of the Grand Rapid Griffins team that won the Calder Cup in 2013. The coach there, Jeff Blashill, is waiting patiently for a chance to lead an NHL bench and would be the obvious candidate to replace Babcock.
However, the turnaround this season showed that Babcock understands the changes the Red Wings roster is going through and will play the best players, not the most experienced. That is the future in the NHL, which has become more competitive than possibly ever. Teams need to hold onto assets to build long-term success. And Detroit needs to keep their most important asset.
“If you think I’m trying to snow you, I’m not,” Babcock said in his final press conference. “I don’t have any idea. I’m going to go through it in a logical manner and make some decisions. When I went someplace before, there was always a better job. There’s no better job.”
So this summer Mike Babcock will become a very rich man. But he won’t have to leave Detroit to do it.
Jbenny Talks 